Elias waited for a long time, but nothing responded.
The lake remained calm.
The giant wolf and wild horses kept their heads down to drink, none of them paying him any mind.
The moon hung high in the sky, looking completely indifferent as to whom he was here to see.
Just as he was considering whether to go through the steps of the Dream Prayer Ritual to ask for customer service, a figure suddenly appeared on the opposite bank of the lake.
There was not a single fluctuation of spirituality.
One moment, it was just a patch of grass illuminated by moonlight; the next, a man wearing a white jacket was standing by the lakeside.
Elias's body tensed instantly.
The man had a face that Elias was all too familiar with.
It was not his current face belonging to Elias Rockland.
It was Jiang Huan's face.
The bridge of his nose, his eyes, even the slight dark circles under his eyes from lack of sleep were exactly as he remembered.
But when Elias looked down at the lake, the reflection of the man in the water turned into his current self.
A pale face.
Messy black hair.
And those eyes Elias saw in the mirror every single day.
He instinctively channeled his spiritual perception but couldn't detect any unfamiliar aura from the other party.
It wasn't hidden.
Nor was it isolated.
It felt more like someone had peeled a part of his self out of the lake and placed it right in front of him.
Even the frequency of the other's chest rising and falling as he breathed was completely identical to his own.
Elias deliberately held his breath, and the man on the opposite bank stopped at the exact same time.
Only when Elias exhaled again did the other resume breathing.
It wasn't imitation.
It was more like they were sharing the same breath to begin with.
What was this supposed to mean, an Audience with himself?!
The man on the opposite bank raised his head and asked across the calm water:
“Whom are you here to have an Audience with?”
Elias stared at that face which belonged to himself.
“I was just about to ask you.”
“Jiang Huan” did not answer.
He stepped onto the lake, his feet not stirring even a single ripple.
But as his first step fell, a tiny room suddenly flashed across the calm surface of the water.
The lights of a strange city filtered through the gap in the curtains, half-eaten takeout sat on the desk, and a phone screen was still lit.
With the second step.
The dining table from Ash Street floated up from the depths of the lake, old tableware set upon it, with the dim yellow gaslights of Velen outside the window.
With the third step.
Charlotte's red hair was tousled by the wind. The girl frowned, her lips moving as if she were complaining about something.
With the fourth step.
The tower lamp on the isolated island went completely dark, and damp darkness pressed down from the top of the lighthouse toward the sea.
The images flashed and vanished in an instant.
The lake quickly returned to calm, as if those memories had never existed.
But Elias had seen them very clearly.
Every single image came from his own perspective; there was not a single scene he hadn't witnessed before.
The other party was not using these memories to show him secrets.
It was simply taking things that had been jumbled together and laying them out before him, one by one.
“Jiang Huan” finally stopped not far from the shore and looked down at Elias.
“Are you Jiang Huan, or are you Elias?”
“All this grand setup just to test me with a giveaway question?”
Elias frowned.
“I am Jiang Huan.”
“What a coincidence.”
The corner of the other's mouth twitched up slightly.
“So am I.”
“So I'm having an Audience with myself?”
“You can have your own answer.”
Elias did not reply.
Although the person before him wore his former face, hearing those words from someone else still felt like having his identity stolen right in front of his face.
Yet, he couldn't prove the other was a fake.
After all, strictly speaking, he, standing on the shore right now, was the one whose face and name didn't match.
“Jiang Huan” seemed to have confirmed something and continued walking toward the shore.
The white jacket he wore brushed against the blades of grass, making a soft rustling sound.
Reaching the shore, he didn't maintain his mysterious posture. Instead, he sat down by the lakeside looking somewhat tired and patted the grass beside him.
“Why are you standing?”
“I'm not charging admission.”
Elias hesitated for a moment before sitting down next to him.
“It's just that seeing myself sitting across from me for the first time, I have to be a bit on guard.”
“What's the point of guarding against me?”
“Jiang Huan” bent down to pick up a pebble and weighed it in his hand.
“Every single embarrassing secret in your head, I know it all.”
Elias gave it some serious thought.
“Then you deserve to die a little.”
The pebble was thrown across the lake.
One.
Two.
Three.
It skipped far across the water's surface before finally sinking into the reflection of the starry sky and the moon.
Neither of them spoke immediately.
The silence was strange.
Though it was their first meeting and the person beside him couldn't be called a real human, Elias didn't feel awkward.
It was like two old friends who had known each other for years finally finding some time to sit side by side and say absolutely nothing.
Even the angle at which they stared at the lake was nearly identical.
After a long time, “Jiang Huan” looked up at the night sky.
“The starry sky is beautiful, isn't it?”
“Uh-huh.”
Elias looked up as well.
“How does it feel to be a lighthouse keeper?”
“Jiang Huan” suddenly asked.
“Low pay, black-hearted bosses, no entertainment facilities on the island, and recently I've had to work part-time to save Hastings Port.”
Elias counted them off on his fingers.
“Overall, I wouldn't recommend applying.”
“Then why haven't you left yet?”
With those words, Elias's fingers froze.
“I can't leave.”
He thought about it.
“The curse hasn't been solved, and then Charlotte and Arthur got dragged into this.”
“Now there's also Jack, Crowley, the Moon Bay seal, and a bunch of bastards who want to use ordinary people as materials.”
With every name he spoke, a face surfaced in Elias's mind.
Some lived under the same roof as him, some kept him company guarding this reef that could be shelled at any moment, and some had merely brushed past him in the midst of disaster.
These connections, whether deep or shallow, could no longer be simply categorized as “troubles left behind by Elias.”
As he spoke, Elias himself felt that this job looked less and less like that of a lighthouse keeper.
A normal keeper's job description probably didn't include suppressing a Divine Scion, stopping capitalists from firing cannons, and investigating cases for the Kingdom's secret police.
Wayland had only given him a thirty percent raise, which was somewhat inadequate for this scope of work.
“So many excuses.”
“Jiang Huan” said calmly.
Elias glanced sideways at him.
“What else am I supposed to say?”
“You can't expect me to admit that I actually like working, can you?”
“That's not what I'm talking about.”
The other picked up another pebble from by his feet but didn't throw it immediately.
“You always used to say that you saved Charlotte because you inherited the feelings Elias left behind.”
“Is there a problem with that?”
“Of course there is.”
“Jiang Huan” turned his head to look at him.
“The feelings that save people belong to Elias, but the trouble caused is all on you.”
“You've kept a very convenient ledger.”
“...”
Elias opened his mouth, momentarily at a loss for how to counter.
“Jiang Huan” laughed and tossed the pebble in his hand into the lake.
This time, the stone didn't skip. It sank the moment it hit the water.
“Just admit it.”
“You are the one who wants to save those people, and you are the one who wants to handle those matters.”
“No one forced Jiang Huan to pull the trigger on the pier.”
“You just like to find a reason that sounds less cheesy every time you finish doing something.”
Elias's mouth twitched.
He wanted to fire back with a retort as usual.
But the excuses that rushed to his lips suddenly felt unnecessary to utter.
The inherited memories might make him feel close to Charlotte, and might let him know which door was his when he returned to Ash Street.
But memories wouldn't draw his gun for him.
Nor would they force him to dive back into danger time and time again.
He past always liked to attribute these actions to Elias.
As if by saying so, he remained just an unlucky bastard who got dragged into this mess by accident.
Doing good deeds could be credited to the emotions left behind by someone else.
Risking his life was merely a matter of being forced by circumstances.
It certainly sounded convenient.
Elias remained silent for a long time before asking in a low voice:
“Then, am I still Jiang Huan?”
This was a question he had written down in his journal.
Back then, he thought what he needed was an esoteric answer concerning his soul, memory, and body.
But now, he suddenly felt a little afraid of hearing the answer.
“Of course you are.”
The other answered without a shred of hesitation.
“Elias's shadow falls upon you because you accepted his name, his family, and the path he left unfinished.”
“Not because you became him.”
“Faces can be changed, names can be borrowed, but choices can never be pawned off on someone else.”
Elias said nothing.
He had once worried that he would completely forget Jiang Huan one day, that the lingering memories and emotions of Elias would slowly overwrite his original self.
But thinking about it now, he still remembered the hot pot his mother served, and he still remembered the slightly worn dining table on Ash Street.
Both lives had left their marks on him.
As for where to go next, that was ultimately up to him to decide.
The lakeside grew quiet once more.
Gusts of wind swept across the sea of grass, brushing against their cheeks and fluttering the hems of their clothes.
In the distance, a wild horse snorted occasionally, the giant wolf kept its head down to drink, and the starry sky hung forever high above their heads.
Elias looked at the two reflections in the lake.
Sitting on the shore were Elias and Jiang Huan.
Yet in the water, it was exactly the opposite.
Which was real and which was fake no longer seemed as important as it did moments ago.
After a long while, “Jiang Huan” spoke again.
“Do you still want to go back?”
“Of course!”
Elias answered without a hint of hesitation.
His parents were there, his friends, and his original life.
Even if the hope of returning was reduced to a barely visible thread, he would never be the one to cut it.
“And what about here?”
Elias fell silent for a moment.
He turned his head to look at Ash Street flashing in the lake water, then thought of the lighthouse cottage, Charlotte, Arthur, and that noble young master who was getting better and better at talking back.
“I can't quite let go of it either.”
With that, he raised his right hand, pinching his index finger and thumb together to leave an almost invisible gap.
“Just a teeny-tiny smidge.”
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